SHE WAS VERY ENGAGING

Who? Why TLW (The Little Woman) of course. It was 36 years ago that we got engaged. Formally this is the day, in actuality, it was the day after Thanksgiving, as I introduced her to my family for the first time, and the next morning my Mother said to me that she seemed like one of her own daughters. I spite of that nasty comment, I did as I planned and asked her to marry me after we left my folks house.

I picked her up that Friday morning, and it was a warm overcast day, as we headed to a diner in my 1970 Camaro. Life was good, I was on a roll, and with a new job in the city and a great gal I was dating. Needing some kind of sense of what I was doing, I took TLW to my house for an after Thanksgiving Day dinner that we always seemed to celebrate in those days. If the witches liked her, then I knew for sure that what I would ask TLW had to be a good thing for me. If they didn‘t, well, too bad, I was asking anyway.

I was more concerned for TLW’s mindset after she left the house, but daring that I am, she would have to know what she was getting into. One sister was still young and playing with dolls, one was trying to iron out the curls in her natural curly hair, one was talking with a Connecticut accent which I couldn’t understand and one was already married and nagging.

I popped the question in the car as we drove away, figuring if she says “no”, at least she wouldn’t smack me while I was driving. She said: “Yes”, and all we needed to do was her running a D&B check on me.

Being engaged was the fun part. We went into the city on January 14th, picked up her ring from the contact that I knew at the Diamond Center, ate a great dinner at the Riverboat near Penn Station where they served these rather large portions of ribs (Yes #1 son, I remembered what I ate) and planned on getting engaged for Valentine’s Day. I went home that night thinking do I really want to wait until then?

The next morning, a Friday dawned bright and cold, as I boarded the train for work, anxiously awaiting TLW to join me at East Islip. I decided to give her the ring then, in front of all our friends, where we had first met and it really caught her by surprise. She was wearing a maroon suit as she proudly walked up and down the train aisle showing off the ring. It was that day that I got my first admonishment: “Why didn’t you tell me, I would have worn something more dressier!”

Amen.

As I promised on January 1st, the results of my weight –in: I lost 2.5% of my original weight-in from my diet and exercise.